Yes, this. If we want to solve the carbon neutral power generation problem in the next decade, this is the only path available. Nothing prevents increased research and development of other power generation technologies, like wind or solar. Do both.
If you really believe, and I think you should, that this is an existential crisis, well we have a solution available today. No new research needed.
Not entirely sure who weâre trying to convince here as most on this forum support building more nuclear plants in some form or fashion. Some may point out why thatâs not getting done but that doesnât imply opposition.
I think that perhaps a source of the disagreement is that Iâm suggesting that we streamline the process by which we build new nuclear plants, to more closely match the processes we employed in the earlier years of the nuclear industry. Not simply because âregulations are bad!â but because at this point we have bigger problems that we really need to deal with here.
Further, I believe that we will need to have the government help subsidize the insurance of such projects, or potentially directly invest in those projects. This of course creates all kinds of potential problems, since the government fucks stuff up all the time, but when it comes to doing really big ass projects, thatâs a thing the government can do.
Finally, another source of the disagreement is that some folks are fixated on the problems of nuclear, like what we do with the waste⌠and my answer is âI donât give a shitâ. Because while that waste is really bad, itâs such a tiny amount that itâs a very localized problem. We can deal with it, because it is tiny.
Right now, we have this giant global problem of greenhouse emissions. That takes priority.
If you just throw nuclear waste out into the back yard, itâs gonna fuck up the area for a few miles away. Hell, at some point in the distant future, with this âliterally no containment at allâ plan, you could see radiation show up in ground water in, again, fairly localized regions.
All that shit is trivial, when you are comparing it to âthe oceans become acidified, and it causes a massive die-off of most ocean life.â
Itâs like⌠nuclear waste seems like a problem, but when you put it into perspective, itâs absolutely trivial.
But if each plant just throws it in the back yard, then itâs thousands of back yards and surrounding which are contaminated forever, not just your theoretical â1 cubic acreâ. Or you have to safely transport tons of it across the country, what on trains? Pickup trucks?
How about security, because I know there a bunch of friendly guys who would love to grab up a few hundred pounds of âwasteâ for their happy fun bombs. It would be great to not need Fort Knox level security in all those dirty backyards, right?
At some point nationalizing the waste collection, transport, security, and storage, seems like the only long-term option.
PS: Secretary âOopsâ Perry cancelled the only ongoing national storage test site program from DoE.
It doesnât matter if nuclear is the answer now, if people donât want it to be built, itâs not getting built.
Oh, but we could change regulation, yadda yadda, unpopular measures that will lead to politicians losing theirs jobs. Yeah, and we could also regulate energy consumption, nr of children / pets, how much carbon youâre allowed to spend, no beef / milk, no carbon expensive travel for leisure, forced relocation, etc.
The unpopular solutions will only be turned to once they stop being unpopular or they become obvious and late⌠Or them being unpopular no longer matters, since politicians no longer need to care about that sort of thing.
And those thousands of back yards is still a totally trivial amount of land.
Do you understand that?
Even if you didnât contain it at all, and just threw it into the ground, the amount of contamination would still be virtually nothing in the grand scheme of things. Compared to the overall land area of the US, it wouldnât matter.
And of course, our solution isnât going to be to just throw it into the back yard. Our existing plan for dealing with it has prevented significant radiation issues for decades. But even in the worst case, itâs still affecting a trivial amount of land.
Sure dude, do that.
But donât sit around twiddling your thumbs while waiting for that to happen. Build more nuclear plants now.
Fucking WIND power is unpopular in tons of places, because idiots say, âI donât want to look out and see windmills!â
If youâre relying on the population being smart and accepting the right solution, youâre gonna have a bad time.
I donât understand what this means. You can certainly build wind and solar infrastructure as fast as, if not faster, than nuclear, so it canât mean that.
Iâm fine with nuclear for baseline power generation, BTW. I just know we wonât build anything like 61 nuclear plants per year, so we probably ought to build solar and wind as fast as we can.
Sure, but your entire argument is that we ignore their fears and desires and force the nuclear solution on them. If thatâs on the table, then anything is on the table, right?
Itâs not that you canât build those. You totally should build those.
But solar and wind canât provide the power we need. We donât have time to develop the new technology that will make them solve the baseline power problem.
Which isnât to say that we shouldnât continue to pursue those technologies. Again, we should. But we should be starting plans to build new nuclear power plants, today.
Well, yeah, because they donât own all the land in the world.
Like, for instance, with wind⌠One of the best places to build wind farms in Mass. is off the coast⌠but there was huge pushback from rich assholes who lived on the coast, because they felt that having little tiny windmills (literally, maybe a few millimeters tall on the horizon) was âruining their viewâ.
Fuck those guys. They donât own the fucking ocean.
I agree this is still something of a problem, but I posted a story from APS that they were going to begin building out battery storage for baseline power load, as the most cost-effective solution. So maybe itâs closer than I thought.
If you look at what APS said, they explicitly stated that one of the reasons why they were pushing ahead with solar and battery backups was that the permitting process was so much simpler.
Also, itâs worth noting that whole lots of the stories cite â800Mw of storageâ, we all know thatâs not how batteries work. Batteries store Mw/h. And in this case, they are 3 hour batteries. So they can provide 800Mw, for 3 hours. Itâs not the same as 800 megawatts of power production, which is 800 megawatts all the time. To be the same, you would need 8 times as many batteries. Thatâs a lot. If you are going to compare that battery supply to normal generating stations, then itâs more accurately described as 100 megawatts of capacity (assuming you have the spare solar output every day to charge it).
Which means that batteries are both feasible and easier to permit.
Sure, my phone has a battery. Clearly batteries exist and function.
But again, we are talking about them making the battery equivalent of 100Mw of capacity. Thatâs not that much.
And we also donât know how much it costs.
If you believe climate change is a threat to mankind I donât know how you can avoid funding nuclear. Is it the most economical option? No. It is, however, the only non-carbon baseline power source we have right now. If we were serious about this, weâd be pouring all kinds of money into wind,solar,nuclear, and fusion research. In addition, pour money into grid-sized storage solutions. You donât have the luxury of picking winners up front.
If you are just trying to do slightly better on the carbon front while being as cost effective as possible, then I guess you just stick with wind, solar, and natural gas. Hope that the storage solutions come online before too long and you can phase out the gas plants.
Isnât his the topic were a few people tried to claim that population doesnât matter, but then we wind up with a chart that has⌠population as a huge part of energy consumption.
Itâs not really small government to hand a private company a chuck of land, tell them to bypass all regulations, tell anyone upset about it to take a hike and then ensure that same population hands that private company money for the electricity because they have no other choice. Government is already heavy in in the utilities fields.
This has been a good discussion / argument as it helps me update my own thoughts and opinions. So thanks!
That nuclear waste is a âtrivial problemâ, I simply disagree. The US has spent $70 billion on it and havenât begun to solve it. And thereâs a surprising amount - not 1000 cubic feet @Timex, more like 5,400,000 cubic feet - in the UK alone. I get it, you think we should just listen, because it isnât that big of a deal. But it is a big deal. No matter how dire the warnings of climate change, no-one, not even a rural sparsely populated county in Nevada, wants it. Yes we âcouldâ just bury it. But we canât. We donât have licenses or permits to do that. If your state or utility chooses to do that, those people will go to jail and it will get dug up and put back in storage.
The regulation framework we have is the one we have. Itâs actually a pretty great tool as it helps protect the environment, manage development, and supports peopleâs and property rights. But itâs not well suited to the climate change issue.
Yes, we may âneedâ to start demolishing small towns in America to make way for nuclear power plants, but it just⌠wonât⌠happen.
Thatâs actually a pretty fair equivalency to me.
No, you canât just buy it. There are people that donât want to sell, that donât want market value or even $5 million for their $80K house. Youâre going to need to take away their personal freedom and constitutional rights. Theyâll be able to show the judge the photos of the family farm, the wildlife, the creek and the local endangered eel. Have fun, see you in a decade or two.
The energy picture is pretty complex. A lot goes into cement and construction and industrial processes that could occur mostly during daytime / wind time, but donât because electricity is baseline priced. I personally donât use that much between midnight and 7AM. A lot goes into residential, but residential other than perhaps car charging and heat is pretty doable with renewables and batteries, especially with market pricing and/or subsidies.
Natural gas is less than half the CO2 emissions of coal, plentiful, and less polluting too. Itâs as easy to set up as buying a jet engine and hooking it up to an existing gas line. Shouldnât we perhaps do that while we debate about nuclear, along with installing all the renewables and storage options we can? Fortunately thatâs what is happening, under current market forces.
Fundamentally the problem is just that power is too cheap. Making electricity much more expensive and market priced reflecting CO2 would make high-cost storage options like thermal and batteries and flywheels and other new inventions much more competitive (along with nuclear). @Timex you want government to intervene and manipulate the complex market and regulatory system to force expensive nuclear power construction to subsidize cheap limitless electricity. How about another scenario - a non-complex carbon tax that makes alternatives viable on an otherwise left-alone market?
Also by the way, I still agree that nuclear is probably the best solution, and needs to be pursued as base load replacement to coal in the US and worldwide. Iâm just discouraged by the lack of progress and suggesting other approaches at the same time. Hope you agree itâs a good discussion.
I already explained why your âyou want government intervention!â Isnât going to work, right?
Yes, this is called eminent domain, but even in this case you are assuming that the only place you could build a nuclear plant is a place with someone who refuses to sell that land. Hell, thereâs tons of government owned land you could use
So then carbon emissions arenât really that big a deal. We can keep burning fossil fuels, just less dirty ones than coal. Good to know.
Timely
Well, since we are really good at building and operating naval nuclear power plants, I guess we could just build a whole lot of carriers and plug them into coastal power grids.